What practical limitations Lean Manufacturing has?

There is a considerable criticism on Lean Manufacturing, some say that during lean it is difficult to consider constant change & on a pursuit of perfection to an extent that any scope for flexibility is eliminated......

Hai Isha

In my opinion Lean Manufacturing has no standard methodologies to implement it. First we need to study the organization and we need to plan the stages / Phases of implementation. If enough planning is not there will be a lot of bottlenecks in implementing and even there will more chance of re-work. E.G: if we need to change the plant layout and also we need to implement 5S, we need to do plant layout optimization and then the 5s. If we follow the reverse because of the ease of implementing, it will lead to re-work after optimizing plant layout.

Prasanna Venkatesan

There will no quick results when ever lean manufacturing methods are implemented.normally lean manufacturing will get success in areas like car/air craft manufacturing industries where there will be definite orders and normally will be limited one.where in large mass production industries where there will be larger workforce and a definite incentive payment system is in place it will be difficult to adopt lean methodology.keeping workforce idle if there are possible delays in supply chain is not ideal.mindset of actual person who works on the process is also very important and is the biggest challenge to overcome in implementation part of any lean manufacturing methodology.in my own experience, a skilled worker who is thorough in his daily work will not be prepared to change his working style which is related to time and money.

Lean is culture. It’s not easy to leave existing Industrial Culture which is primarily based on western and adopt Toyota culture which has evolved over years. In last few years many companies have adopted lean but it bounce back as efforts are not made at all levels. Supplier in supply chain does not respond. People change company and we are back to square one. It is possible to implement Lean with appropriate steps.

First step is to change thinking. Anything we do has to add value. If it is not adding value measures should be taken to reduce the activity if cannot be eliminated. Eye on Seven Waste should be always kept to identify and eliminate. Top management participation is very important. They should participate in activity. If numbers are not achieved root cause should be found out. Provide required expertise and training to people. Multitasking/ Multi Skills are important. Innovations/Kaizens should be recognised. Stress should be on employees creating and implementing solutions. Moon shine shop should not be used as repair shop. Give required time and encouragement. 60% perfection should be acceptable solution. Problem should be discussed where it has occurred involving people working at the place. Stress should be on simple workable solution instead sophisticated , costly and time consuming. Empty soap case thrown out by air blow is very good example to show that you don’t need sophisticated tools to address customer complains.

This mentioned above is tough which brings limitations to Lean Implementation.

Though there could be so many practical limitations in implementing lean, the major cause is how people perceive it before & after implementation.

Before implementation: Humans always have problem with change management whenever they are asked to follow a new system from that of the existing one.So it really takes time for them to convince themselves to understand the benefit of the implementation.

After Implementation: Saturation is the biggest enemy of lean process. Toyota though being a leading lean enterprise, it doesnt stops with what it has and how it does. Rather each and every toyota employee believes lean implementation to be a continous improvement which has no end. Developing a new system and reviewing it to identify the flaws in it again forms a new system and so on.